Frank Brandegee was from Connecticut. He supported the damming widely but said that he had respect for preservation of nature. "I appreciate the importance of preserving beautiful natural features of a landscape as much as anybody else...yet ultimately civilization won out because the mere preservation of a beautiful, romantic, and picturesque spot...for aesthetic purposes could not conceivably take precedence over the urgent needs of great masses of human beings for the necessities of life." - Wilderness and the American Mind by Roderick Nash His opinion lead others to follow his example.
Frank Brandegee
source: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division